Greg Bethard grew up in New Jersey USA and developed a passion for agriculture at a young age. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees from Virginia Tech in dairy nutrition and management and has spent his entire career in the dairy industry. He has served on faculty at New Mexico State University and North Carolina State University, and as a technical services specialist for Monsanto Dairy Business. From 2000 to 2014, Greg and his wife Rachel operated G&R Dairy Consulting, Inc., an international dairy consulting business based in Blacksburg, VA. Greg consulted with dairy producers and allied industry throughout the US and around the globe, working in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Greg spent a few years in Wisconsin, serving as CFO for the Pagel Family Businesses in Kewaunee, WI from 2014 to 2016. In 2017 Greg moved to Kansas and realized his lifelong dream of becoming a dairyman. Since 2017 he has been managing partner in High Plains Ponderosa Dairy in Plains KS and currently serves as CEO.

Tara Bohnert is the Commercial Business Development Manager for Nedap in North America. She identifies opportunities for Nedap solutions and promotes more efficient and sustainable herd management. Before coming to Nedap, she spent 17 years working in the AI industry consulting with dairy farmers around the globe.

Breanna Bone earned her bachelor’s degree in animal sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May of 2022. She then started her master’s in animal science at the University of Illinois under the direction of Dr. Isabella Condotta and Dr. Phil Cardoso. Her master’s research focuses on precision technology which can analyze social interactions among dairy cows.

Nathan has been the Dairy Herd Manager at Four Cubs Farm in Grantsburg, WI since 2014. The dairy currently milks 980 cows on 16 Lely A4 Robots. Retrofitting the barn and installing the robots after a disastrous parlor fire in the fall of 2017. Managing through an event of that magnitude brought forth a lot of experience in finding creative ways to make a budget work. He received a bachelor's degree in Animal Science and a minor in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin - River Falls. Utilizing his beef background Nathan also partnered with the owners of Four Cubs Farm to start Brickfield Market in 2022, which they sell meat from beef cross steers raised on their farm and utilize that meat in their food truck. He and his wife, Elisabeth, have 1 daughter, Tenley (4), and 1 son, Brooks (1).

Ryne Braun is focused on combining business and user needs into successful products. Ryne is a part of Ever.Ag, a global provider of software, tools and services that automate operations and manage risk across food production supply chains from the farm field to store shelf. Ryne focuses on building farm software with a decade of successful experience in launching problem solving solutions for dairy farmers.

Mitch Breunig is owner of Mystic Valley Dairy, LLC, which is located near Sauk City, WI. The farm milks about 450 cows and raises crops on 1050 acres. Mystic Valley Dairy focuses on breeding high type cattle with longevity and profitable production. The farm's prefix is Jenny-Lou and is recognized worldwide for breeding Toystory, the world’s only 2 million unit of semen sold sire. The rolling herd average is ~32,000 lbs. of milk, 1325 fat and 1025 protein per cow.

Terry grew up on a dairy farm and after graduating with an MEng from QUB in 1995 spent the next 9 years working in a Software Architect/Management role for various telecommunications companies e.g. BT around the world including Silicon Valley, Canada and China.

In 2004 he founded FarmWizard, a cloud based software product which allowed livestock farmers to easily maintain legislative and performance records. In 2015 FarmWizard was majority acquired by Wheatsheaf, part of the Duke of Westminster's £15bn Grosvenor group.

In 2019, along with Adam Askew, Terry founded CattleEye, an ‘AI first’ company, which harnesses the capabilities of advanced Artificial Intelligence in video analytics to deliver the world’s first hardware independent autonomous livestock monitoring platform. The platform will transform how billions of livestock are managed with a radically new approach to monitoring which will meet a rapidly growing market demand driven by trends in protein consumption, antimicrobial usage reduction, animal welfare and a need for increased livestock efficiencies.

CattleEye’s lameness detection system is now monitoring almost 100K dairy cows across the USA and UK and has been academically proven to outperform expert human beings in the detection of lameness. The system is available in the USA via the company’s in market partner Specialty Sales, recently the company has also announced a worldwide distribution deal with GEA.

Chad is the General Manager of Carlson Dairy, LLP and farms in partnership with his Dad, Curtney, and Brother, Carl, on their 1,800-cow fourth generation dairy farm in West Central Minnesota. The dairy currently milks in a 60-stall GEA Dairy Pro Q rotary robotic milking system. Chad graduated from the U of MN - St. Paul in 1995 with an Animal Science degree and returned to the farm at that time. He and his wife, Kindra, have 3 sons, Cael (22), Caden (20), and Conlan (16).

David Cook did an undergraduate degree at UW Madison in Agronomy and Poultry Science and farmed for a few years. After starting a family, he went back to graduate school at UW Madison for a Masters in Biological Systems Engineering and a PhD in Dairy Nutrition. During graduate school besides adding two more children to the family, he founded BoviSync, a herd management software, with the goal of creating a big data solution for dairies and collaborators. Since then he has been leading BoviSync, as they have added farms across the US and world, and work with Allied Industry on Big Data solutions.

Walt Cooley got his start in agriculture at a young age moving sprinkler pipe, stacking hay and working on his grandfather’s dairy in Utah. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Brigham Young University – Idaho and earned his MBA from Boise State University. He served as editor-in-chief of the industry-leading publication Progressive Dairy (www.progressivedairy.com) for 16 years. He is currently vice president of publishing for Progressive Publishing in Jerome, Idaho. He is the founder and editor of The Cow Tech Report (www.cowtechreport.com), a regular newsletter covering all things related to emerging technologies for cows. He is a learner and futurist who is passionate about technology and its application for farms and livestock.

Taliah leads the VAS Dairy Intelligence team and resides in Durand, Wisconsin. Taliah holds a master's degree in adult education with undergraduate studies in animal science. She has experience in performing dairy herd data evaluation as well as teaching farmers and industry consultants how to apply data to farm-level decision making. In her role, Taliah leads the data science and education team in developing the next generation of dairy insights and providing value through data applications. Taliah brings on-farm experience to her role as a herd manager for a 300-cow robotic dairy and her ownership in a small dairy herd.

Dr. Marcia Endres is a Professor, Dairy Extension Specialist, and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Minnesota. Her research team has studied how various housing and management systems can influence health, welfare and performance of dairy cattle. In recent years, Dr. Endres and her team have also conducted research and outreach on precision dairy technologies, including robotic milking systems, automated milk feeders and individual cow behavior sensors. She has published 73 peer reviewed research articles, and numerous abstracts, proceedings, and popular press articles, in addition to 7 book chapters and being the editor for the 2021 international book "Understanding the Behaviour and Improving the Welfare of Dairy Cattle". She teaches the dairy herd management course and coaches the University of Minnesota Dairy Challenge teams. Dr. Endres serves as director and committee chair on the PAACO (Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization) Board (the national organization that certifies animal welfare audits and auditors) and served as President of the Dairy Cattle Welfare Council. She is also a member of the FARM Program Animal Care Task Force. In addition, Dr. Endres has organized U.S. and International Precision Dairy Conferences and serves as chair of the International Precision Dairy Farming Association. Dr. Endres received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, M.S. from Iowa State University, and Veterinary Medicine degree from University of Parana, Brazil.

Jared Feltz is a fifth generation dairy farmer from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Jared currently manages his family's 680-cow dairy herd. A degree in Agricultural Business with a minor in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin River Falls in 2013 have provided Jared with practical and useful knowledge for today's modern dairy scene. Jared assumed management responsibility for the farm's 10 milking robots which were installed over the last 6 years. In 2016 the Feltz Family added an on-farm dairy store. Today the store sells a variety of unique Wisconsin products as well as hosts a fall corn maze, a petting zoo, and farm tours.

Michael Goeldi is the Customer Success Team Lead for smaXtec where his team manages the installation, onboarding, and ongoing support for the smaXtec system which is a health and reproductive monitoring system capturing data through a bolus in the rumen. This internal monitoring provides precise data which can help dairy managers improve efficiency and profitability for their operation with unique metrics such as imminent calving, pH, and estimated water intake. Michael is a passionate advocate for technology and data utilization in the dairy industry which started with plugging information into Dairy Comp when he was in High School, from there he attended the University of Wisconsin – Madison where he earned his Bachelor's Degree in Dairy Science and Genetics. After graduating, he spent nearly 10 years in the Nutrition field utilizing on-farm data streams to evaluate nutritional changes and to find areas of opportunities. He joined smaXtec when they decided to enter the US market in a direct capacity in September of 2021. As a previous attendee of the Precision Dairy Conference, he is looking forward to this year’s event and the ability to interact with others who want to continue to move the dairy industry forward with innovation and execution.

Yijing Gong earned her Bachelor's degree in Food Science from Cornell University before pursuing a dual Master's program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under the supervision of Dr. John Lucey, she conducted research on cheese production for her Master's in Food Science and simultaneously obtained a second Master's degree in Computer Science. In the summer of 2021, Yijing began her Ph.D. program under the guidance of Dr. Cabrera. Her current research focuses on the development of advanced simulation models, comprehensive data integration systems, and optimization tools for dairy farms, with the aim of streamlining and enhancing farmers' decision-making processes.

Dennis Haubenschild owns and operates the 1,600-cow Haubenschild Dairy with his wife Marsha and sons Tom and Bryan and their families near Princeton, Minnesota. Dennis grew up on this farm which started with his parents in 1952. He has been interested and done research on anaerobic digestion in the early 70's. They began operating a plug flow methane digester system in September 1999. Since then, the system has logged over 23 years of operation and run time over 96 percent. The goals have been to show sustainable and environmentally sound methods for not only the dairy industry but other industries and government agencies alike. Dennis has been active in the Minnesota dairy industry for many years. He has shared his experiences installing and operating a methane digestion with numerous groups from across the country and hosts hundreds of visitors at the farm each year seeking to learn about their operation.

Dale Jefferson, CEO of VAS (Valley Agricultural Software, Inc.) brings over 25 years of experience in software growth and business development with start-ups and companies in the grain supply chain, agronomy, infrastructure and agriculture sectors. Most recently, Dale served as general manager of Solentra Global, a part of Constellation Software, and served as president and COO of CropZilla software.

Dale holds an MBA from The Ohio State University, along with a graduate degree in Chemistry from Princeton University.

Mike Jerred is a Global Technology Manager - Dairy for Cargill Animal Nutrition where he is involved global dairy technology development, application, and deployment. He has been in this role for 12 years and has been with Cargill for 28 years. His current position allows him to connect his passion for the dairy industry with his interest in global dairy markets along with diet formulation and dairy management software development. Current projects include dairy MAXTM and Dairy EnteligenTM. His various roles in Cargill have given him the opportunity to visit dairy operations in over 25 countries. Mike was raised on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin and earned a B.S. and M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Dairy Science where he worked primarily in high-quality forage utilization. In his spare time, he enjoys supporting his wife with her business called Forage to Fromage which promotes the dairy industry to consumers through artisan cheese education and consulting.

Matt Lange is an independent dairy business consultant working with dairy operations across the US. Matt assists dairy owners and managers with financial analysis, farm financial management, debt structuring, forecasting and financial projections, scenario analysis, production and on-farm management, and strategic business planning.

Matt serves a wide array of dairy operations including: farms with 250 to 5,000 cows; Holstein, Jersey, and Cross-bred herds; farms financed with a variety of lenders and investors; conventional, automated, and diversified operations.

Prior to forming his own consulting business, Matt worked over a decade for Compeer Financial, part of the Farm Credit System, and prior to that he held dairy development and dairy consultancy roles in government and private industry. Matt is a graduate of UW-Platteville and holds a M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University and has an MBA from Indiana University. Matt resides in Menomonie, Wisconsin with his wife and twin daughters.

Tamara Leigh is co-founder and CEO of EIO Diagnostics, an agriculture technology start-up using sensors and machine learning to automate mastitis detection for dairies. Before moving into technology and entrepreneurship, Tamara worked in the agriculture sector from barn to boardroom. She is an award-winning agriculture journalist, established and ran a successful agriculture communications practice, and has worked with farms, industry associations, and senior levels of government on agricultural issues.

Andy Lenkaitis, PE, MSc, brings a wealth of experience to the dairy industry working as a Herd Management Systems Engineer at GEA Farm Technologies, while also co-owning a dairy farm that milks with two GEA robots, alongside his wife Sarah. Andy dedicates his time educating dairy producers about the technology implemented on their farm and how it can best meet their individual needs. By helping farms find solutions to becoming more efficient in their day-to-day activities and maximizing their milk production, Andy plays an integral role in setting operations up for future generations. Andy has a master’s degree in Agriculture and Biological Engineering. He has worked at GEA for over 15 years covering areas from the manure management side of the business to herd health and management.

Mark Murray is a 4th generation owner of Murcrest Farms LLC, located in northern New York. The family owned farm milks around 1400 cows and crops just under 3600 acres, growing all the forages for the dairy, as well as some corn grain and cash crops. Mark is in charge of dairy operations, as well as assisting with financial planning and the crop side of the business.

Ariana Negreiro earned her bachelor's degree in Animal Science from Michigan State University, where she continued for her master's degree researching amino acid and fatty acid nutrition under the supervision of Dr. Adam Lock. In 2021 Ariana moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue a Ph.D. researching precision livestock management with Dr. Joao Dorea. Her research focuses on computer vision systems and machine learning applications for dairy cattle management, with specific interest in individual animal identification, heifer growth tracking, calf heat stress detection, and feeding behavior monitoring.

Dr. Niles graduated from the University of Minnesota with a D.V.M. in 1982. He practiced in Casco, Wisconsin (’83-’98) and also worked as a Monsanto Technical Service veterinarian in Visalia, CA. Since 2001, Don has been the co-owner and manager of Dairy Dreams LLC, a 2800 cow dairy in NE Wisconsin. Dr Niles has been a featured speaker, both nationally and internationally on topics relating to proper cow care, in particular maternity care on modern dairy farms. Recently, he was elected as president of the newly formed Peninsula Pride Farms, a farmer lead environmental stewardship organization in Kewaunee and southern Door Counties. He participates on the following organizations: AVMA ; AABP; DCWC; DBA and NMC.

Abbi Prins earned her Bachelor's degree in Animal Science from Washington State University before joining the Animal Science Department at the University of Minnesota in the Fall of 2022. Under the supervision of Dr. Marica Endres she began her Ph.D. program, and her research plans are to focus on using precision technology to better manage dairy cows, to evaluate how mastitis impacts milk production, and use various metrics collected by robot software.

Dr. Megan Schrupp is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Science and a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. After several years in private practice, where she specialized in dairy production medicine, Megan left to become part of the third generation and co-owner of NexGen Dairy LLC in Eden Valley, Minnesota. NexGen Dairy milks 1,000 Jersey and Jersey-cross cows, farms 1500 acres, raises all dairy heifer replacements on site and utilizes two solar energy systems to power the dairy’s facilities. Megan and her team at the dairy focus on the implementation of technology to maximize cow health, reproduction and longevity. In addition, Megan is able to apply her experiences in dairy management along with the use of technology as well as her veterinary knowledge to her clients in her private veterinary practice, Dairy Performance Service LLC.

Corey Scott is Athian's Vice President of Sales and Marketing. She is an experienced livestock sustainability professional who understands how to bridge the gap between farmers and ranchers and the remainder of the animal agriculture value chain. Prior to joining Athian, Corey spent 15 years in food agriculture, most recently with Truterra LLC, the sustainability division of Land O'Lakes. She received her Executive MBA and undergraduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and UMN Carlson School of Business. In 2023, she was selected as one of GreenBiz's 12 Women Cultivating Sustainable Food Systems and earned a U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award for her work in collaborating across the dairy supply chain to provide on-farm investment in sustainable practices and reduce dairy's overall environmental footprint.

Currently, Founder and CEO of iYOTAH Solutions, Kari brings a wealth of Ag industry knowledge from both a production perspective and management of successful businesses. Prior to launching iYOTAH, Spaan held the position of COO at DN2K, a precision livestock company in Denver, CO. Kari also was with Beck Ag for 10 years, as VP of Go-to-Market Strategies and Business Development where she forged and managed strategic relationships with executives and management teams. Kari was key to generating new business and long-term account opportunities over multiple markets. In addition, she has also developed three personal businesses and brands that are still active and growing today.

Kari was raised in South Dakota where her love of agriculture and animals was born. She earned her bachelor degree in Animal Science and a master degree in Exercise Physiology from South Dakota State University and continued on to further her education adding additional certifications from Iowa State University and Purdue University.

Outside the office, Spaan spends her time enjoying her lake home near Atlanta, GA. She loves to travel, relax by the ocean, hike in the mountains, run, ride motorcycles and spend quality time with her husband, three boys and dog Wilson.

Dr. Stangaferro got his DVM and MS degrees at Universidad Nacional Litoral, Argentina. Thereafter, he worked as a Professor of Theriogenology in the Veterinary College of the same University for 3 years. Dr. Stangaferro arrived at Cornell University in 2013, embarking on a PhD program in Animal Science that he completed in 2017. During his program, he performed different applied research working in Dr. Julio Giordano’s Lab. His research activities focused on dairy cattle reproduction, nutrition and health. After graduating in 2017, Dr. Stangaferro accepted a position as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell, following the same research lines. His passion for the dairy industry and his ability for working in close relationships with farm owners and personnel made him join Dairy Health and Management Services in June of 2018. Currently, he is the leader of the Research Team at Dairy Health and Management Services. Over the last years, Dr. Stangaferro has published more than 30 peer review publications in scientific journals, 50 abstracts presented in different meetings and 3 book chapters, receiving recognition for a publication among 100 most highly cited papers in Journal of Dairy Science since 2016 and a ‘Top Cited Author’ recognition by Reproduction journal for his paper 'Molecular aspects of bovine cystic ovarian disease pathogenesis'. He also received a Maynard award from Cornell University in 2015 and has served as an active ad-hoc reviewer for different journals, including Journal of Dairy Science, Reproduction in Domestic Animals, Animal, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, and others. In his free-time Dr. Stangaferro enjoys running, playing basketball, and spending quality time with family and friends.

Drew Swartz earned his Bachelor's degree in Animal Sciences from the University of Missouri before coming to the University of Minnesota in the Fall of 2020. Under the supervision of Dr. Marcia Endres, he conducted research on herd management practices in automatic milking systems for his Master's in Animal Science. In the Fall of 2022, Drew began his Ph.D. program under the guidance of Dr. Gerard Cramer. His current research focuses on using an autonomous camera-based system to detect early stages of lameness in dairy cattle and understanding the perceived barriers producers and stakeholders have that prevent them from implementing technology.

He has been the founder and CEO of three manufacturing start-ups, including Tycom, a manufacture of ultra-precision cutting tools (Irvine CA) now part of Kyocera Corporation, Tycom Dental (Irvine CA), a manufacturer of endodontic instruments now owned by Sybron Dental Specialties (a Danaher company), and Liquidmetal Saga Italy, a producer of molded metallic glass alloys (Padova, Italy).

From 2007 to 2017, Tim was COO and Client Success Officer of Telogis Inc., a provider of Cloud-based software in the mobile resource management and fleet optimization space. Telogis is now called Verizon Connect and is owned by Verizon Corporation.

From 2017 through 2019, Tim was CEO of VAS (Valley Agricultural Software, Tulare CA). At VAS he led the transformation of the company from 100% "on-premise" software to a full Cloud platform for dairy operations, including the market leading DairyComp herd management application and FeedWatch feed management application.

While at VAS, Tim collaborated with Nestle, Land O Lakes and Lely to form Vyla, a technology platform focused on solving key challenges in the global dairy ecosystem, including industry collaboration, farm sustainability and factful transparency in the food chain. Tim is currently the CEO of Vyla LLC.

Tim is married, has six children, nine grandchildren, and is passionate about playing soccer, hiking, mountain biking and using a chainsaw. He is a farm owner in Montrose CO, growing hay and raising beef cattle.

Dr. Mark Thomas is a founding partner and consulting veterinarian with Dairy Health & Management Services (Dairy Health) which currently provides services to dairy clients in the USA, Mexico & China. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science at Cornell University and continued his education at the College of Veterinary Medicine where he earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree in 1997. In 2001 he completed the Penn State Dairy Production Medicine Certificate Program. He is also a diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) certified in dairy practice.

Following graduation Dr. Thomas entered clinical practice at Countryside Veterinary Clinic, LLP in northern New York where he was a partner for 19 years.

In early 2012 he joined other colleagues and founded Dairy Health to provide bioeconomic, decision-based consulting and research to dairy clients within the USA and internationally in Mexico and China. He is a managing partner and the business development lead for Dairy Health.

Within practice Dr. Thomas’ main focus is production and preventative medicine. In addition to routine veterinary care, Dr. Thomas provides consulting services in the areas of nutrition, reproduction, milk quality (certified milking equipment technician) and replacement rearing. He speaks Spanish and provides bilingual training programs. Outside of consulting, Dr. Thomas enjoys lecturing at meetings and is also active in teaching and presenting to veterinary students through various programs including the Summer Dairy Institute at Cornell.

He has served as an active member of the AABP membership committee and has chaired both the student and general program at the AABP national convention. He was the AABP District I director for 8 years and is a past-president of the organization.

In 2011 he received the AABP Merial Excellence in Preventive Medicine- Dairy Award.

He currently resides in Torreon, Mexico. In his free time, Dr. Thomas enjoys many outdoor activities with his family and friends.

Artem is the CEO of Cattle Care. He holds degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Saint Petersburg State University. He previously co-founded, headed up and sold Computer Vision based startup for retail.

Sam Vorpahl grew up on his family’s 200 cow dairy farm in Random Lake, WI. He's been on and off the farm over the last 30 years and watched the dairy grow over the years to 3000 head. He's been passionate about the dairy industry his whole life and worked in various roles over the years. Feedlync allows him to combine his passion for technology and dairy farming. Sam is the Operations Manager at Feedlync for North America.

John Vosters is a partner in Milksource LLC. His role is VP and Livestock manager of the 35,000 cows, 28,000 heifers and 5000 steers and 20,000 Goats at Tidy View, Omro, Rosendale, New Chester, LaBelle, Heifersource, Calfsource and Chilton and Drumlin Dairy. In his role he is responsible for all animal care, production and employee development and performance. John is one of the founding partners of Milksource and his parents purchased the farm that is the first dairy of Milksource in 1965. He is an active member of the Outagamie County Holstein Breeders, Appleton Alliance Church and a committee member of Dairy Cares of WI. He is married to Keri and they have three daughters and sons-in-law and four grandchildren.

Wayne was born and raised on a dairy farm in south central Wisconsin. He completed his BS at the University of Wisconsin - River Falls and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He was in a private veterinary practice in Wisconsin for 10 years, serving as the President and CEO for most of that time and overseeing rapid growth and expansion of the business. Wayne joined the Monsanto Dairy Business (MDB) and played a critical role to introduce and launch the first biotechnology product into the US market. He had the opportunity to build and lead the Monsanto Technical Service organization and serve on the MDB management team. In this role, he served as the liaison between R&D, commercial development, and the sales organization. This was a wonderful opportunity to hone technical, business, and people skills. Those skills transferred nicely into a role as Regional Business Manager for Standard Dairy Consultants (SDC). Wayne was able to build a team of nutrition and management consultants in the Midwest and again served on the business management team for SDC. In the latter years at Standard and into retirement, he serves as an Advisor to iYOTAH Solutions, where they are developing an IT platform to bring disparate sources of data into a single data lake and create easy to interpret summary data to livestock producers. This platform can bridge phenotypic and genotypic data, as well as biologic and financial outcomes, for business insights not previously realized. Wayne lives with his wife of 40+ years in Appleton, WI. He enjoys watching all the activities in which his grandchildren participate.